Letters

LETTERS: Reform higher education’s quality assurance

degree

High education has recently been tainted by rampant fraud. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The proliferation of the universities in the country that have now degenerated into open commercial ventures has compromised the capacity of the Commission of Higher Education (CHE) to offer its supervisory role as well as the universities to offer the needed training.

There is no doubt now that apart from lack of accreditation in some of the courses that were recently listed, our universities and the country do not have sufficient personnel to develop curriculum and train students they admit.

This creates an urgent need for a shake-up and streamlining of higher education, and adoption of reforms in quality assurance mechanisms. To begin with, there is need to carry out a comprehensive survey on the status of higher education training in this country.

Apart from seeking quick remedial actions by doing this, it will also help the government to create enough capacity to supervise higher education in Kenya. The recent revelation that some universities were offering students invalid degree courses is a testimony that CHE lacks capacity commensurate to the growth the higher education has witnessed in the recent years.

A report by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service indicated that more than 10,000 students enrolled in bachelor’s degree courses in 26 universities, risk getting “worthless” certificates because the programmes they are pursuing are being offered illegally. This also brings another question of whether as a country we have aligned our training to the needs of the growing economy. Although the country is changing education system to a competence-based system, which is already being piloted, there is also the need to align higher education to the ambitious growth agenda we have already lined up.

This would not only create jobs for the graduating students but it will also benefit the country and reduce overreliance on expatriates working in some of the huge infrastructural projects the country in undertaking.

To accelerate development in the country, concerted efforts should be made to link education and training to industrialisation vision, enhance the capacity of training institutions, and strengthen the links with the productive and service sectors, while also increasing access to university. The crisis facing university is a worry to both the students and the parents who are investing their time and finances and would end up with fake degrees.

It has also dented the credibility of the higher education in the country and with the prohibitive cost of seeking foreign university education, what only remains is for the government to bring back the confidence people had in our university some years back.

It is the work of CHE to ensure quality education is offered in our universities and that is why they must put in place strong measures that ensure that Universities offer accredited courses. There are also some cases that universities award degrees to students who don’t meet the minimum set instructional hours.

There is also growing concern about an upsurge in educational fraud, which threatens to devalue higher education and undermine academic integrity, as well as harm students and institutional reputations alike.

As noted in a number of report, fraud and corruption in education manifests itself in various forms beyond contract-cheating. This include diploma mills and the counterfeiting of academic documents, as well as bribery to ensure the licensing of academic institutions, the hiring of academic staff, the passing of examinations, admission into education programmes and the award of degrees.

In some cases, universities allegedly admit students without adequate academic prerequisites and graduated them from “abbreviated” two-month degree programs.

But the crudest form of academic fraud is the counterfeiting or purchasing of downright forged degrees. Corruption in the accreditation and licensing of institutions may allow providers of sub-standard quality to operate.

Universities also try to ensure accreditation by employing “ghost professors” to meet lecturer quotas, forging inventories and bribing site inspectors. High education has recently been tainted by rampant fraud because profit-seeking individuals run many colleges.

Lasting solutions demand both vigilance and creativity on the part of admission personnel, institutions, governments and others.

Raphael Obonyo, via email.